The Renaissance Strategic Center (RSC), as the think-tank hub of the Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD), organized a webinar, titled: Empowering Women in Gaza: Lessons from Global Contexts on Tuesday 11th November within the framework of UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, the event highlighted the urgency of integrating women’s leadership into peacebuilding and decision-making processes.
Speakers included Sir Charles Petrie( ARDD Senior Advisor and former UN Assistant Secretary General), Mr. Nicolas Burniat(UN Women Country Representative Jordan and Officer-in-Charge UN Women Palestine) and Ms. Heba Zayyan (Regional Advisor, Women, peance, security and humanitarian action for UN women). The discussion was moderated by Dr Sana Jelassi(Senior Advisor for ARDD’s Program on Women and Youth Empowerment ).
Sir Charles Petrie opened the webinar by explaining its genesis, noting that preliminary discussions around peace plans for Gaza revealed a common concern: the international community risks sidelining women and local actors, allowing those “with the arms” to define priorities instead of the people sustaining Gaza’s daily survival.Drawing on global experiences, including Syria, Papua New Guinea, Sudan, and Myanmar, he showed how women consistently become the backbone of resilience, leading community responses, mediating social tensions, and sustaining essential services. He emphasized that the purpose of the webinar, aligned with the commitments of UNSCR 1325, is to equip donors and policymakers with concrete arguments for women’s inclusion in peacebuilding.
Mr. Nicolas presented the humanitarian situation in Gaza, citing UN estimates that tens of thousands of women and girls have been killed since the start of the war. In line with the Women, Peace and Security agenda, Nicolas stressed that women’s voices must be central to ceasefire negotiations, early recovery discussions, and governance reforms. Local women’s organizations have kept essential services running despite immense exhaustion, and their leadership must guide peacebuilding efforts. Ahead of the recovery conference planned in Egypt, he called for inclusive participation mechanisms that guarantee women’s leadership from the earliest stages. Rebuilding Gaza must include structures that amplify women’s voices and restore transnational governance links essential for long-term peace.
Ms. Heba discussed the historical evolution of the Palestinian women’s movement, rooted in the national liberation struggle and deeply connected to political participation. Organizations such as Miftah have long advocated for legal reform and political representation across the West Bank and Gaza. She highlighted how the 2007 political split and the blockade severely disrupted women’s activism, limiting legal space and fragmenting organizational networks. Repeated wars have destroyed infrastructure, erased memory spaces, and undermined community identity. Despite this, Heba emphasized that women remain at the heart of Gaza’s resilience and are indispensable to rebuilding the social fabric. Her intervention underscored a key principle of UNSCR 1325: women’s meaningful participation is inseparable from national rights, sovereignty, and representation. Palestinian women will not accept decision-making processes that exclude Gazan voices.
Across all interventions, speakers reaffirmed a unified message, Gaza’s peacebuilding must be rooted in the Women, Peace and Security agenda and the principles of UNSCR 1325. Women’s leadership, community-based resilience, and local governance structures are not secondary considerations, they are essential foundations for sustainable peace, social cohesion, and recovery. The webinar called therefore on the international community to prioritize women’s participation, create institutional space for their leadership, and commit to recovery strategies that reflect the lived realities of Gaza’s communities. Only through inclusive, gender-responsive, resilience-driven approaches can Gaza’s future be rebuilt on a stable and equitable foundation.
